The Prairie

by James Fenimore Cooper

  CHAPTER XXIII

  --Save you, sir. --Shakspeare.

  The sleep of the fugitives lasted for several hours. The trapper was thefirst to shake off its influence, as he had been the last to court itsrefreshment. Rising, just as the grey light of day began to brightenthat portion of the studded vault which rested on the eastern margin ofthe plain, he summoned his companions from their warm lairs, and pointedout the necessity of their being once more on the alert. While Middletonattended to the arrangements necessary to the comforts of Inez andEllen, in the long and painful journey which lay before them, the oldman and Paul prepared the meal, which the former had advised them totake before they proceeded to horse. These several dispositions werenot long in making, and the little group was soon seated about arepast which, though it might want the elegancies to which the bride ofMiddleton had been accustomed, was not deficient in the more importantrequisites of savour and nutriment.

  "When we get lower into the hunting-grounds of the Pawnees," said thetrapper, laying a morsel of delicate venison before Inez, on a littletrencher neatly made of horn, and expressly for his own use, "we shallfind the buffaloes fatter and sweeter, the deer in more abundance, andall the gifts of the Lord abounding to satisfy our wants. Perhaps we mayeven strike a beaver, and get a morsel from his tail[*] by way of a raremouthful."

  [*] The American hunters consider the tail of the beaver the most nourishing of all food.

  "What course do you mean to pursue, when you have once thrown thesebloodhounds from the chase?" demanded Middleton.

  "If I might advise," said Paul, "it would be to strike a water-course,and get upon its downward current, as soon as may be. Give me acotton-wood, and I will turn you out a canoe that shall carry us all,the jackass excepted, in perhaps the work of a day and a night. Ellen,here, is a lively girl enough, but then she is no great race-rider; andit would be far more comfortable to boat six or eight hundred miles,than to go loping along like so many elks measuring the prairies;besides, water leaves no trail."

  "I will not swear to that," returned the trapper; "I have often thoughtthe eyes of a Red-skin would find a trail in air."

  "See, Middleton," exclaimed Inez, in a sudden burst of youthfulpleasure, that caused her for a moment to forget her situation, "howlovely is that sky; surely it contains a promise of happier times!"

  "It is glorious!" returned her husband. "Glorious and heavenly is thatstreak of vivid red, and here is a still brighter crimson; rarely have Iseen a richer rising of the sun.

  "Rising of the sun!" slowly repeated the old man, lifting his tallperson from its seat with a deliberate and abstracted air, while hekept his eye riveted on the changing, and certainly beautiful tints,that were garnishing the vault of Heaven. "Rising of the sun! I like notsuch risings of the sun. Ah's me! the imps have circumvented us with avengeance. The prairie is on fire!"

  "God in Heaven protect us!" cried Middleton, catching Inez to his bosom,under the instant impression of the imminence of their danger. "There isno time to lose, old man; each instant is a day; let us fly."

  "Whither?" demanded the trapper, motioning him, with calmness anddignity, to arrest his steps. "In this wilderness of grass and reeds,you are like a vessel in the broad lakes without a compass. A singlestep on the wrong course might prove the destruction of us all. It isseldom danger is so pressing, that there is not time enough for reasonto do its work, young officer; therefore let us await its biddings."

  "For my own part," said Paul Hover, looking about him with no equivocalexpression of concern, "I acknowledge, that should this dry bed of weedsget fairly in a flame, a bee would have to make a flight higher thancommon to prevent his wings from scorching. Therefore, old trapper, Iagree with the captain, and say mount and run."

  "Ye are wrong--ye are wrong; man is not a beast to follow the gift ofinstinct, and to snuff up his knowledge by a taint in the air, or arumbling in the sound; but he must see and reason, and then conclude.So follow me a little to the left, where there is a rise in the ground,whence we may make our reconnoitrings."

  The old man waved his hand with authority, and led the way withoutfurther parlance to the spot he had indicated, followed by the whole ofhis alarmed companions. An eye less practised than that of the trappermight have failed in discovering the gentle elevation to which healluded, and which looked on the surface of the meadow like a growtha little taller than common. When they reached the place, however, thestinted grass itself announced the absence of that moisture, which hadfed the rank weeds of most of the plain, and furnished a clue to theevidence by which he had judged of the formation of the ground hiddenbeneath. Here a few minutes were lost in breaking down the tops ofthe surrounding herbage, which, notwithstanding the advantage of theirposition, rose even above the heads of Middleton and Paul, and inobtaining a look-out that might command a view of the surrounding sea offire.

  The frightful prospect added nothing to the hopes of those who had sofearful a stake in the result. Although the day was beginning to dawn,the vivid colours of the sky continued to deepen, as if the fierceelement were bent on an impious rivalry of the light of the sun. Brightflashes of flame shot up here and there, along the margin of the waste,like the nimble coruscations of the North, but far more angry andthreatening in their colour and changes. The anxiety on the rigidfeatures of the trapper sensibly deepened, as he leisurely traced theseevidences of a conflagration, which spread in a broad belt about theirplace of refuge, until he had encircled the whole horizon.

  Shaking his head, as he again turned his face to the point where thedanger seemed nighest and most rapidly approaching, the old man said--

  "Now have we been cheating ourselves with the belief, that we had thrownthese Tetons from our trail, while here is proof enough that they notonly know where we lie, but that they intend to smoke us out, like somany skulking beasts of prey. See; they have lighted the fire around thewhole bottom at the same moment, and we are as completely hemmed in bythe devils as an island by its waters."

  "Let us mount and ride," cried Middleton; "is life not worth astruggle?"

  "Whither would ye go? Is a Teton horse a salamander that he can walkamid fiery flames unhurt, or do you think the Lord will show his mightin your behalf, as in the days of old, and carry you harmless throughsuch a furnace as you may see glowing beneath yonder red sky? There areSiouxes, too, hemming the fire with their arrows and knives on everyside of us, or I am no judge of their murderous deviltries."

  "We will ride into the centre of the whole tribe," returned the youthfiercely, "and put their manhood to the test."

  "Ay, it's well in words, but what would it prove in deeds? Here is adealer in bees, who can teach you wisdom in a matter like this."

  "Now for that matter, old trapper," said Paul, stretching his athleticform like a mastiff conscious of his strength, "I am on the side of thecaptain, and am clearly for a race against the fire, though it line meinto a Teton wigwam. Here is Ellen, who will--"

  "Of what use, of what use are your stout hearts, when the element of theLord is to be conquered as well as human men. Look about you, friends;the wreath of smoke, that is rising from the bottoms, plainly says thatthere is no outlet from this spot, without crossing a belt of fire. Lookfor yourselves, my men; look for yourselves; if you can find a singleopening, I will engage to follow."

  The examination, which his companions so instantly and so intentlymade, rather served to assure them of their desperate situation, thanto appease their fears. Huge columns of smoke were rolling up from theplain, and thickening in gloomy masses around the horizon. The red glow,which gleamed upon their enormous folds, now lighting their volumes withthe glare of the conflagration, and now flashing to another point, asthe flame beneath glided ahead, leaving all behind enveloped in awfuldarkness, and proclaiming louder than words the character of theimminent and approaching danger.

  "This is terrible!" exclaimed Middleton, folding the trembling Inez tohi
s heart. "At such a time as this, and in such a manner!"

  "The gates of Heaven are open to all who truly believe," murmured thepious devotee in his bosom.

  "This resignation is maddening! But we are men, and will make a strugglefor our lives! how now, my brave and spirited friend, shall we yet mountand push across the flames, or shall we stand here, and see those wemost love perish in this frightful manner, without an effort?"

  "I am for a swarming time, and a flight before the hive is too hot tohold us," said the bee-hunter, to whom it will be at once seen thatMiddleton addressed himself. "Come, old trapper, you must acknowledgethis is but a slow way of getting out of danger. If we tarry here muchlonger, it will be in the fashion that the bees lie around the strawafter the hive has been smoked for its honey. You may hear the firebegin to roar already, and I know by experience, that when the flameonce gets fairly into the prairie grass, it is no sloth that can outrunit."

  "Think you," returned the old man, pointing scornfully at the mazes ofthe dry and matted grass which environed them, "that mortal feet canoutstrip the speed of fire, on such a path! If I only knew now on whichside these miscreants lay!"

  "What say you, friend Doctor," cried the bewildered Paul, turning tothe naturalist with that sort of helplessness with which the strong areoften apt to seek aid of the weak, when human power is baffled by thehand of a mightier being, "what say you; have you no advice to giveaway, in a case of life and death?"

  The naturalist stood, tablets in hand, looking at the awful spectaclewith as much composure as if the conflagration had been lighted in orderto solve the difficulties of some scientific problem. Aroused bythe question of his companion, he turned to his equally calm thoughdifferently occupied associate, the trapper, demanding, with the mostprovoking insensibility to the urgent nature of their situation--

  "Venerable hunter, you have often witnessed similar prismaticexperiments--"

  He was rudely interrupted by Paul, who struck the tablets from hishands, with a violence that betrayed the utter intellectual confusionwhich had overset the equanimity of his mind. Before time was allowedfor remonstrance, the old man, who had continued during the whole scenelike one much at a loss how to proceed, though also like one who wasrather perplexed than alarmed, suddenly assumed a decided air, as if heno longer doubted on the course it was most advisable to pursue.

  "It is time to be doing," he said, interrupting the controversy that wasabout to ensue between the naturalist and the bee-hunter; "it is time toleave off books and moanings, and to be doing."

  "You have come to your recollections too late, miserable old man," criedMiddleton; "the flames are within a quarter of a mile of us, and thewind is bringing them down in this quarter with dreadful rapidity."

  "Anan! the flames! I care but little for the flames. If I only knew howto circumvent the cunning of the Tetons, as I know how to cheat the fireof its prey, there would be nothing needed but thanks to the Lord forour deliverance. Do you call this a fire? If you had seen what I havewitnessed in the Eastern hills, when mighty mountains were like thefurnace of smith, you would have known what it was to fear the flames,and to be thankful that you were spared! Come, lads, come; 'tis time tobe doing now, and to cease talking; for yonder curling flame is trulycoming on like a trotting moose. Put hands upon this short and witheredgrass where we stand, and lay bare the 'arth."

  "Would you think to deprive the fire of its victims in this childishmanner?" exclaimed Middleton.

  A faint but solemn smile passed over the features of the old man, as heanswered--

  "Your grand'ther would have said, that when the enemy was nigh, asoldier could do no better than to obey."

  The captain felt the reproof, and instantly began to imitate theindustry of Paul, who was tearing the decayed herbage from the ground ina sort of desperate compliance with the trapper's direction. Even Ellenlent her hands to the labour, nor was it long before Inez was seensimilarly employed, though none amongst them knew why or wherefore.When life is thought to be the reward of labour, men are wont to beindustrious. A very few moments sufficed to lay bare a spot of sometwenty feet in diameter. Into one edge of this little area the trapperbrought the females, directing Middleton and Paul to cover their lightand inflammable dresses with the blankets of the party. So soon as thisprecaution was observed, the old man approached the opposite margin ofthe grass, which still environed them in a tall and dangerous circle,and selecting a handful of the driest of the herbage he placed it overthe pan of his rifle. The light combustible kindled at the flash. Thenhe placed the little flame in a bed of the standing fog, and withdrawingfrom the spot to the centre of the ring, he patiently awaited theresult.

  The subtle element seized with avidity upon its new fuel, and in amoment forked flames were gliding among the grass, as the tongues ofruminating animals are seen rolling among their food, apparently inquest of its sweetest portions.

  "Now," said the old man, holding up a finger, and laughing in hispeculiarly silent manner, "you shall see fire fight fire! Ah's me! manyis the time I have burnt a smooty path, from wanton laziness to pick myway across a tangled bottom."

  "But is this not fatal?" cried the amazed Middleton; "are you notbringing the enemy nigher to us instead of avoiding it?"

  "Do you scorch so easily? your grand'ther had a tougher skin. But weshall live to see; we shall all live to see."

  The experience of the trapper was in the right. As the fire gainedstrength and heat, it began to spread on three sides, dying of itself onthe fourth, for want of aliment. As it increased, and the sullen roaringannounced its power, it cleared every thing before it, leaving the blackand smoking soil far more naked than if the scythe had swept the place.The situation of the fugitives would have still been hazardous had notthe area enlarged as the flame encircled them. But by advancing to thespot where the trapper had kindled the grass, they avoided the heat,and in a very few moments the flames began to recede in every quarter,leaving them enveloped in a cloud of smoke, but perfectly safe from thetorrent of fire that was still furiously rolling onward.

  The spectators regarded the simple expedient of the trapper with thatspecies of wonder, with which the courtiers of Ferdinand are said tohave viewed the manner in which Columbus made his egg stand on its end,though with feelings that were filled with gratitude instead of envy.

  "Most wonderful!" said Middleton, when he saw the complete successof the means by which they had been rescued from a danger that he hadconceived to be unavoidable. "The thought was a gift from Heaven, andthe hand that executed it should be immortal!"

  "Old trapper," cried Paul, thrusting his fingers through his shaggylocks, "I have lined many a loaded bee into his hole, and know somethingof the nature of the woods, but this is robbing a hornet of his stingwithout touching the insect!"

  "It will do--it will do," returned the old man, who after the firstmoment of his success seemed to think no more of the exploit; "now getthe horses in readiness. Let the flames do their work for a short halfhour, and then we will mount. That time is needed to cool the meadow,for these unshod Teton beasts are as tender on the hoof as a barefootedgirl."

  Middleton and Paul, who considered this unlooked-for escape as a speciesof resurrection, patiently awaited the time the trapper mentioned withrenewed confidence in the infallibility of his judgment. The Doctorregained his tablets, a little the worse from having fallen amongthe grass which had been subject to the action of the flames, andwas consoling himself for this slight misfortune by recordinguninterruptedly such different vacillations in light and shadow as hechose to consider phenomena.

  In the mean time the veteran, on whose experience they all so implicitlyrelied for protection, employed himself in reconnoitring objects in thedistance, through the openings which the air occasionally made in theimmense bodies of smoke, that by this time lay in enormous piles onevery part of the plain.

  "Look you here, lads," the trapper said, after a long and anxiousexamination, "your eyes are young and may prove better than my worthl
esssight--though the time has been, when a wise and brave people saw reasonto think me quick on a look-out; but those times are gone, and many atrue and tried friend has passed away with them. Ah's me! if I couldchoose a change in the orderings of Providence--which I cannot, andwhich it would be blasphemy to attempt, seeing that all things aregoverned by a wiser mind than belongs to mortal weakness--but if I wereto choose a change, it would be to say, that such as they who have livedlong together in friendship and kindness, and who have proved theirfitness to go in company, by many acts of suffering and daring in eachother's behalf, should be permitted to give up life at such times, aswhen the death of one leaves the other but little reason to wish tolive."

  "Is it an Indian, that you see?" demanded the impatient Middleton.

  "Red-skin or White-skin it is much the same. Friendship and use can tiemen as strongly together in the woods as in the towns--ay, and for thatmatter, stronger. Here are the young warriors of the prairies.--Oftendo they sort themselves in pairs, and set apart their lives for deedsof friendship; and well and truly do they act up to their promises.The death-blow to one is commonly mortal to the other! I have been asolitary man much of my time, if he can be called solitary, who haslived for seventy years in the very bosom of natur', and where he couldat any instant open his heart to God, without having to strip it of thecares and wickednesses of the settlements--but making that allowance,have I been a solitary man; and yet have I always found that intercoursewith my kind was pleasant, and painful to break off, provided that thecompanion was brave and honest. Brave, because a skeary comrade in thewoods," suffering his eyes inadvertently to rest a moment on the personof the abstracted naturalist, "is apt to make a short path long; andhonest, inasmuch as craftiness is rather an instinct of the brutes, thana gift becoming the reason of a human man."

  "But the object, that you saw--was it a Sioux?"

  "What the world of America is coming to, and where the machinations andinventions of its people are to have an end, the Lord, he only knows. Ihave seen, in my day, the chief who, in his time, had beheld the firstChristian that placed his wicked foot in the regions of York! How muchhas the beauty of the wilderness been deformed in two short lives! Myown eyes were first opened on the shores of the Eastern sea, and welldo I remember, that I tried the virtues of the first rifle I ever bore,after such a march, from the door of my father to the forest, as astripling could make between sun and sun; and that without offence tothe rights, or prejudices, of any man who set himself up to be the ownerof the beasts of the fields. Natur' then lay in its glory along thewhole coast, giving a narrow stripe, between the woods and the ocean, tothe greediness of the settlers. And where am I now? Had I the wingsof an eagle, they would tire before a tenth of the distance, whichseparates me from that sea, could be passed; and towns, and villages,farms, and highways, churches, and schools, in short, all the inventionsand deviltries of man, are spread across the region. I have known thetime when a few Red-skins, shouting along the borders, could set theprovinces in a fever; and men were to be armed; and troops were to becalled to aid from a distant land; and prayers were said, and the womenfrighted, and few slept in quiet, because the Iroquois were on thewar-path, or the accursed Mingo had the tomahawk in hand. How is it now?The country sends out her ships to foreign lands, to wage their battles;cannon are plentier than the rifle used to be, and trained soldiers arenever wanting, in tens of thousands, when need calls for their services.Such is the difference atween a province and a state, my men; and I,miserable and worn out as I seem, have lived to see it all!"

  "That you must have seen many a chopper skimming the cream from the faceof the earth, and many a settler getting the very honey of nature, oldtrapper," said Paul, "no reasonable man can, or, for that matter, shalldoubt. But here is Ellen getting uneasy about the Siouxes, and now youhave opened your mind, so freely, concerning these matters, if youwill just put us on the line of our flight, the swarm will make anothermove."

  "Anan!"

  "I say that Ellen is getting uneasy, and as the smoke is lifting fromthe plain, it may be prudent to take another flight."

  "The boy is reasonable. I had forgotten we were in the midst of a ragingfire, and that Siouxes were round about us, like hungry wolves watchinga drove of buffaloes. But when memory is at work in my old brain, ontimes long past, it is apt to overlook the matters of the day. You sayright, my children; it is time to be moving, and now comes the realnicety of our case. It is easy to outwit a furnace, for it is nothingbut a raging element; and it is not always difficult to throw a grizzlybear from his scent, for the creatur' is both enlightened and blindedby his instinct; but to shut the eyes of a waking Teton is a matter ofgreater judgment, inasmuch as his deviltry is backed by reason."

  Notwithstanding the old man appeared so conscious of the difficulty ofthe undertaking, he set about its achievement with great steadiness andalacrity. After completing the examination, which had been interruptedby the melancholy wanderings of his mind, he gave the signal to hiscompanions to mount. The horses, which had continued passive andtrembling amid the raging of the fire, received their burdens with asatisfaction so very evident, as to furnish a favourable augury of theirfuture industry. The trapper invited the Doctor to take his own steed,declaring his intention to proceed on foot.

  "I am but little used to journeying with the feet of others," he added,as a reason for the measure, "and my legs are a weary of doing nothing.Besides, should we light suddenly on an ambushment, which is a thing farfrom impossible, the horse will be in a better condition for a hardrun with one man on his back than with two. As for me, what matters itwhether my time is to be a day shorter or a day longer! Let the Tetonstake my scalp, if it be God's pleasure: they will find it coveredwith grey hairs; and it is beyond the craft of man to cheat me of theknowledge and experience by which they have been whitened."

  As no one among the impatient listeners seemed disposed to disputethe arrangement, it was acceded to in silence. The Doctor, though hemuttered a few mourning exclamations on behalf of the lost Asinus,was by far too well pleased in finding that his speed was likely to besustained by four legs instead of two, to be long in complying: and,consequently, in a very few moments the bee-hunter, who was never lastto speak on such occasions, vociferously announced that they were readyto proceed.

  "Now look off yonder to the East," said the old man, as he began to leadthe way across the murky and still smoking plain; "little fear of coldfeet in journeying such a path as this: but look you off to the East,and if you see a sheet of shining white, glistening like a plate ofbeaten silver through the openings of the smoke, why that is water. Anoble stream is running thereaway, and I thought I got a glimpse of ita while since; but other thoughts came, and I lost it. It is a broadand swift river, such as the Lord has made many of its fellows in thisdesert. For here may natur' be seen in all its richness, trees aloneexcepted. Trees, which are to the 'arth, as fruits are to a garden;without them nothing can be pleasant, or thoroughly useful. Now watchall of you, with open eyes, for that stripe of glittering water: weshall not be safe until it is flowing between our trail and these sharpsighted Tetons."

  The latter declaration was enough to ensure a vigilant look out for thedesired stream, on the part of all the trapper's followers. With thisobject in view, the party proceeded in profound silence, the old manhaving admonished them of the necessity of caution, as they entered theclouds of smoke, which were rolling like masses of fog along the plain,more particularly over those spots where the fire had encounteredoccasional pools of stagnant water.

  They travelled near a league in this manner, without obtaining thedesired glimpse of the river. The fire was still raging in the distance,and as the air swept away the first vapour of the conflagration, freshvolumes rolled along the place, limiting the view. At length the oldman, who had begun to betray some little uneasiness, which caused hisfollowers to apprehend that even his acute faculties were beginningto be confused, in the mazes of the smoke, made a sudden pause, anddropping his rifle to the
ground, he stood, apparently musing over someobject at his feet. Middleton and the rest rode up to his side, anddemanded the reason of the halt.

  "Look ye, here," returned the trapper, pointing to the mutilated carcassof a horse, that lay more than half consumed in a little hollow of theground; "here may you see the power of a prairie conflagration. The'arth is moist, hereaway, and the grass has been taller than usual.This miserable beast has been caught in his bed. You see the bones; thecrackling and scorched hide, and the grinning teeth. A thousand winterscould not wither an animal so thoroughly, as the element has done it ina minute."

  "And this might have been our fate," said Middleton, "had the flamescome upon us, in our sleep!"

  "Nay, I do not say that, I do not say that. Not but that man will burnas well as tinder; but, that being more reasoning than a horse, he wouldbetter know how to avoid the danger."

  "Perhaps this then has been but the carcass of an animal, or he toowould have fled?"

  "See you these marks in the damp soil? Here have been his hoofs,--andthere is a moccasin print, as I'm a sinner! The owner of the beast hastried hard to move him from the place, but it is in the instinct of thecreatur' to be faint-hearted and obstinate in a fire."

  "It is a well-known fact. But if the animal has had a rider, where ishe?"

  "Ay, therein lies the mystery," returned the trapper, stooping toexamine the signs in the ground with a closer eye. "Yes, yes, it isplain there has been a long struggle atween the two. The master hastried hard to save his beast, and the flames must have been very greedy,or he would have had better success."

  "Harkee, old trapper," interrupted Paul, pointing to a little distance,where the ground was drier, and the herbage had, in consequence, beenless luxuriant; "just call them two horses. Yonder lies another."

  "The boy is right! can it be, that the Tetons have been caught intheir own snares? Such things do happen; and here is an example to allevil-doers. Ay, look you here, this is iron; there have been some whiteinventions about the trappings of the beast--it must be so--it mustbe so--a party of the knaves have been skirting in the grass afterus, while their friends have fired the prairie, and look you at theconsequences; they have lost their beasts, and happy have they been iftheir own souls are not now skirting along the path, which leads to theIndian heaven."

  "They had the same expedient at command as yourself," rejoinedMiddleton, as the party slowly proceeded, approaching the other carcass,which lay directly on their route.

  "I know not that. It is not every savage that carries his steel andflint, or as good a rifle-pan as this old friend of mine. It is slowmaking a fire with two sticks, and little time was given to consider, orinvent, just at this spot, as you may see by yon streak of flame, whichis flashing along afore the wind, as if it were on a trail of powder. Itis not many minutes since the fire has passed here away, and it maybe well to look at our primings, not that I would willingly combat theTetons, God forbid! but if a fight needs be, it is always wise to getthe first shot."

  "This has been a strange beast, old man," said Paul, who had pulled thebridle, or rather halter of his steed, over the second carcass, whilethe rest of the party were already passing, in their eagerness toproceed; "a strange horse do I call it; it had neither head nor hoofs!"

  "The fire has not been idle," returned the trapper, keeping his eyevigilantly employed in profiting by those glimpses of the horizon, whichthe whirling smoke offered to his examination. "It would soon bake you abuffaloe whole, or for that matter powder his hoofs and horns into whiteashes. Shame, shame, old Hector: as for the captain's pup, it is to beexpected that he would show his want of years, and I may say, I hopewithout offence, his want of education too; but for a hound, like you,who have lived so long in the forest afore you came into these plains,it is very disgraceful, Hector, to be showing your teeth, and growlingat the carcass of a roasted horse, the same as if you were telling yourmaster that you had found the trail of a grizzly bear."

  "I tell you, old trapper, this is no horse; neither in hoofs, head, norhide."

  "Anan! Not a horse? Your eyes are good for the bees and for the hollowtrees, my lad, but--bless me, the boy is right! That I should mistakethe hide of a buffaloe, scorched and crimpled as it is, for the carcassof a horse! Ah's me! The time has been, my men, when I would tell youthe name of a beast, as far as eye could reach, and that too with mostof the particulars of colour, age, and sex."

  "An inestimable advantage have you then enjoyed, venerable venator!"observed the attentive naturalist. "The man who can make thesedistinctions in a desert, is saved the pain of many a weary walk, andoften of an enquiry that in its result proves useless. Pray tell me, didyour exceeding excellence of vision extend so far as to enable you todecide on their order, or genus?"

  "I know not what you mean by your orders of genius."

  "No!" interrupted the bee-hunter, a little disdainfully for him, whenspeaking to his aged friend; "now, old trapper, that is admitting yourignorance of the English language, in a way I should not expect from aman of your experience and understanding. By order, our comrade meanswhether they go in promiscuous droves, like a swarm that is followingits queen-bee, or in single file, as you often see the buffaloestrailing each other through a prairie. And as for genius, I'm surethat is a word well understood, and in every body's mouth. There is thecongress-man in our district, and that tonguey little fellow, whoputs out the paper in our county, they are both so called, for theirsmartness; which is what the Doctor means, as I take it, seeing that heseldom speaks without some considerable meaning."

  When Paul finished this very clever explanation he looked behind himwith an expression, which, rightly interpreted, would have said--"Yousee, though I don't often trouble myself in these matters, I am nofool."

  Ellen admired Paul for anything but his learning. There was enough inhis frank, fearless, and manly character, backed as it was by greatpersonal attraction, to awaken her sympathies, without the necessity ofprying into his mental attainments. The poor girl reddened like a rose,her pretty fingers played with the belt, by which she sustained herselfon the horse, and she hurriedly observed, as if anxious to direct theattentions of the other listeners from a weakness, on which her ownthoughts could not bear to dwell--

  "And this is not a horse, after all?"

  "It is nothing more, nor less, than the hide of a buffaloe," continuedthe trapper, who had been no less puzzled by the explanation of Paul,than by the language of the Doctor; "the hair is beneath; the fire hasrun over it as you see; for being fresh, the flames could take no hold.The beast has not been long killed, and it may be that some of the beefis still hereaway."

  "Lift the corner of the skin, old trapper," said Paul, with the tone ofone, who felt, as if he had now proved his right to mingle his voicein any council; "if there is a morsel of the hump left, it must be wellcooked, and it shall be welcome."

  The old man laughed, heartily, at the conceit of his companion.Thrusting his foot beneath the skin, it moved. Then it was suddenly castaside, and an Indian warrior sprang from its cover, to his feet, with anagility, that bespoke how urgent he deemed the occasion.